NEIGHBORHOOD STORIES SYSTEM - From the Neighborhood to the World

[xochiquetzl_xkvn]

@puzzlezaddict :D thank you.

(I wasn't completely serious; it was more a statement of defending Neighborhood Stories because I as a player like it, and explaining what is and isn't included as just another player. I cannot speak to the feature's design decisions and whether they're good or bad as anything other than a player.)

[Pick-a-boo_doo]

@EA_Cade Is the Neighborhood Stories System set to take precedence over the game options system?
If the option to "replenish vacant houses" is turned on, but the Neighborhood Stories System is set to "off" regarding moving, no one will move into an empty house. Conversely, if the option is turned off but the Neighborhood Stories System is on, people are moving in.
If only one of the settings is enabled, i.e. only Neighborhood Stories System, I don't think it makes sense to have the same setting item in two places.
Is this because we are in the process of preparing to add something new in the future?
I wasn't sure where to put this, but I think it hits on a question about the system, so I put this here.

(CM: Link removed)

[EA_Cade]

Hi @Pick-a-boo_doo,

Good catch. The check box under Options > Gameplay was meant to be removed when Neighborhood Stories was released, since it does indeed replace the functionality of the button.

This will be updated in a future release.

CM Edit: This change rolled out in the 4/26 patch. 

[Pick-a-boo_doo]

@EA_Cade Thank you for your response.
Now I will devise a new setting and play with it until a future update.

[Selenahih]

This is possibly one of the coolest things to be added in the Sims and really makes the world feel more lively. Things seem surprising, I love checking up on my neighbors on the mailbox (although I wish there was a way I could scroll to read everything instead of clicking the mailbox 50 times XD) I feel like there is no this new level of unpredictability when I play the game and I find interesting changes going on all the time. Such a cool, interesting addition that now feels like the sims has been missing before!  

[valohim666]

Personally, I'm finding this system really annoying. First off, it's really confusing that you have to enable or disable options separately for My Households and for Other Households. I thought I had the options disabled then noticed they were on for the Other Households, so now my current save is getting out of hand and I just started a couple days ago. For example I have one randomly generated household that is now up to 5 babies when they had none to start. The Landgraab household has 4 babies. Both the Goth and Spencer Kim Lewis households have moved out of their default homes and aren't even in any homes now, and both households also have 3 babies in them. The BFF household has moved twice, first into an actual home and now they aren't currently in the world. I regularly get calls asking about dating someone or trying to be friends with someone, yet I'm not even sure it's having any affect on anything.

The concept is really cool, it reminds me of the NRaas Story Progression mod for Sims 3 or even something like MCCC for Sims 4, though it needs more options. For example If you enable the adoption or have a baby options, they should have additional options for things like maximum number of children and other variables to consider instead of each setting simply being on or off. Then again I have a feeling this is another of those things where you need multiple packs to really get the most out of it, and seeing as how I just have the base game I'm probably missing a lot.

EDIT: I disabled the stories options completely yet I'm still getting the phone calls, is this normal? If so that's really annoying, though I wouldn't mind if it was optional to still get the calls with the stories disabled. Oh and in case anyone is wondering, I'm playing just the base game on an Xbox One which means no mods or anything that would alter the functionality of the vanilla game.

[JonaO703]

@valohim666Hi!  I totally agree the NS system needs more options, like the maximum children limit you mentioned.  I've disabled the progression options in my game but I have friends who've been saying their games are inundated with babies.  As for the phone calls, they were added separately before the new story progression options.  The first NS update was explained in this post from November 23, 2021.

https://www.ea.com/games/the-sims/the-sims-4/news/introducing-neighborhood-stories

Then the "From the Neighborhood to the World" update was released earlier this year, as explained in this post from March 15, 2022.  EDIT: Hello? I just thought about it and this is the content of the OP by CM Cade!  lol

https://www.ea.com/en-gb/games/the-sims/the-sims-4/news/neighborhood-stories-system

I believe that means the two sets of events are independent of each other, which is why we still get the phone calls even when the story progression is disabled.  Also, the effects from the phone calls are real.  When a sim calls to ask about trying for baby and you say "go for it", that household just might be having a baby soon.  When a sim asks about hanging out as friends or going on a date with some other sim, they will likely gain or lose relationship with that sim, depending on the outcome.  The only one I haven't checked is the one about getting engaged but I'm willing to bet that if you tell them to do it, then they will probably gain the engaged relationship status.  The only way to be sure would be to play those sims and check their relationships panels.  Another effect I've noticed is that my sims gain or lose relationship with the calling sim, depending on the outcome of the event.  My sims also get a moodlet like "matchmaker" when a date goes well.

[valohim666]

@JonaO703 Ugh so I guess no matter what I do I'll still get the calls. Well at least they seem to have died down a lot, which honestly I thought was odd. When I first started the fresh save I was obviously getting no calls since my sim had no friends, but then once I made just one friend it seemed like I had a call every single day asking about dating someone or trying to make a friend. Then I figured as I made more friends the frequency of the calls would just become completely absurd, but it seems like there are fewer calls now.

I've seen sims change careers and have babies from the calls so I know that those actually do something, though I wasn't sure about the date or friendly outing ones since I saw no place where I could actually check (unless I did as you mentioned and played as that sim which I didn't even think to try). At least with the career ones I seem to get a notification indicating the job change, as if I had asked what their career was. Then with a new baby sometimes the sim would call and ask me to come see it, or just call and say they were expecting which I thought was pretty cool.

I haven't even seen anything for engagements at all though so I also have no idea about that one, though as you said I would also assume that your actions will affect things. Honestly I didn't even know that engagements were possible with this update until I checked the links you provided (thank you for those by the way), so that's cool and I guess I'll see one eventually.

I've also noticed the relationship change pop up over my sim's head, as well as the moodlets for various things. I've seen the matchmaker one as well as one for someone having a baby, then another one from one of my sim's friends adopting a baby.

I do hope they will expand on this idea a bit more, though without adding some new pack you'd have to buy. I'm sure I'm in a very small minority, but I just don't like buying the packs for these Sims games and never have. I just don't like having to keep spending money on a game just to get more content out of it.

[simsplayer818]

I'm on console, I disabled this function because it added too much to the problem of constant phonecalls and because I personally hate adding babies to households that don't have the resources/appropriate setup and because "No" was being accepted as "Yes" so multiple babies were still appearing (it harked back to The Sims 3 babies lying in neighbours gardens screaming their poor little heads off). I also have elders asking about trying for a baby, all reported on the appropriate threads.

I wish disabling the function stopped the additional phonecalls. Yesterday for example it inexplicably stopped my Sim from getting to her exam even though she was stood outside the uni building. After 2 calls in that hour of waiting for her exam to start, she missed the timeslot somehow because the call about "trying for a baby" happened at the same time as the exam start. I ended up exiting without saving and doing it again as by the time she got there it affected her performance in the exam. She's also got her sister pestering her almost daily asking about trying for a baby but she has a family of 6 already and her Aunt who has a max household is asking too.

I understand the idea of Neighborhood Stories and in theory I should like it but my game is so badly impacted by bugs and nothing new every works quite as it should.

I think that if this is going to be tweaked as it goes along, it should stop the calls if it's disabled in game options...but then my game options controls don't always work either and some things that are Off still work when they shouldn't.

[valohim666]

@simsplayer818 Reading your comment makes me kind of glad that I don't have anything other than the base game. One of my favorite YouTubers plays this game pretty regularly and even just seeing the calls and glitches there annoys me, so I can only imagine what it can be like actually having to deal with them. The situation you mentioned with your character would have frustrated me more than I'd like to admit, and I would have exited without saving too because I absolutely can't stand it when something goes wrong in a game that I had zero control over. I can accept when I personally make mistakes, but when the game makes them for me that is not okay.

I want to like this story system because the concept is one I really like, but as with so many other things in this game the execution on it falls short. I mean at least it's better than the system in Sims 3, which I don't think that one even worked at all lol. I personally wish EA would just stop with all the freaking packs for a while and just fix the game because while some people seem completely fine with it no matter what, I know that some (myself included) just get irritated with all the issues some of which never get addressed at all.

Hopefully they do tweak things in this story system, but as with so many other things in this game I have a feeling it will still be borked in some way. You mentioned that some of your options don't always work, well when a simple option can't function properly then what are they going to do with actual game mechanics? lol